A burn in report.  

It might just be temporary

I has to be temporary. The "Now Playing list" is just a list of recorded
shows that you can select to watch/delete/modify. How much time does it take
to do that?? :) We're talking hours for burn-in. You fall asleep with
the list up?

larry

btwyx,

I had a burn-in drama last year. When I viewed the white screen mode on my Panny I noticed two shadowed bars approximately matching the position of black bars for 2:35:1 movies I watched (very, very faint).
It turned out it's just a slightly visible portion of the screen structure (sort of like the Sony Trinitron lines in Sony's CRT monitors). In fact, it didn't exactly match the location of 2:35:1 bars. Any time I've looked at a Panasonic plasma on a white screen I've seen it.

Could that be your problem?

BTW, I also freaked out back then because it appeared a couple inches on the side of the plasma seemed to have been darker, unevenly worn. I remembered that quite a few TV channels had been shifted to the side, leaving that section unused, which is why I thought it could have been uneven phosphor wear (burn-in).

Turns out....*Rich turning red*...it was a bloody shadow! When the plasma is struck by light from one side, as mine often is, the bezel casts a slightly darker shadow onto a side of the screen. The darned thing had me fooled and worried for two days.

Given my display has suffered a fair amount of abuse at the hands of my family and there is no indication of actual burn in I learned not to worry any more.

I hope your problem turns out to be as silly.

I look for burn in. Given the proliferation of bugs and graphics, it's a real concern.

The new model Hitachi sets come with a "white screen" function to "burn out" "burn in". I would think that displaying an Avia gray screen for 5-10 mins would duplicate that function. If all the other suggestions fail, the Avia gray screen might be worth a try.

Just to be sure, is the contrast at a lower setting?

Hey Paul, quick question about your Hitachi: I've got the 42HDT55 and I've noticed something that I'm sure is *not* burn-in as I've seen it since day one, but it is a little annoying nonetheless. When the screen goes to black and I'm watching in a completely darkened room, I notice what appears to be some non-uniformity of the black background. It almost appears as though there are alternating wide bands of two shades of black. As I say, I only ever see this if the room is completely dark and the screen is displaying all black (such as a fade to black between scenes in a movie) or a very low-light scene, so it doesn't happen often, but was wondering if you (or other Hitachi, etc.) plasma owners have noticed this. I figure this is simply a function of the manufacturing process, but am wondering if I should have a service tech. come out and have a look. Am I just being too picky about the uniformity of the background in admittedly demanding lighting conditions or is this something I should have looked into?

Oh, BTW, I've been making use of the Hitachi's ability to scroll a zoomed image down several pixels in order to get rid of the scrolling score updates on ESPN to avoid the possibility of burn-in. This feature is available on the Aspect menu. It wasn't really intended for this purpose, but it works great.

Chasin, I just posted a thread called "3:4 format burn in???" in which I talked about noticeing the same problem in my Gateway. You can read what the guys said in the thread, but they pretty much said it's not permanent, my contrast ratio is prob too high, and also because I've been watching stuff in almost exclusively 3:4 format.

Austin

Sorry, the exact thread title was "3:4 format borders burnt in my plasma widescreen???"

Two quick thoughts:

(1) If it ain't there except when you are looking for it, well, don't look for it.

(2) Paul said: "The new model Hitachi sets come with a "white screen" function to "burn out" "burn in"."

Anyone can respond to this, but, seriously: Explain to me how a white screen would do anything at all for burn-in. Not image retention, but burn in. I understand burn in pretty well and don't understand how a white screen could make a shred of difference.

Mark

Mark,
my semi-serious explanation. If you use the "white screen" function in the torch mode and long enough, say 4 weeks 24/7, it will probably burn in the whole screen pretty much evenly.

Andrzej

I read your thread yesterday. Doesn't sound like the same thing to me, since your problem seems intimately related to 4:3 viewing and mine has been there since day one - and I watch no 4:3 content unstretched.

"...my semi-serious explanation. If you use the "white screen" function in the torch mode and long enough, say 4 weeks 24/7, it will probably burn in the whole screen pretty much evenly."

Andrzej, I hear you. That doesn't seem to be all that useful, but I hear you.

Chasin:

Is it still there if you turn off the set, wait 10 seconds and then turn on the plasma again?

I noticed that on my plasma I will get a shadow "burn in" when I turn the cable or dvd feed off and leave the plasma on. Once I turn off the plasma and then turn it on again, the shadow image is gone.

I assume (unless someone here knows otherwise) that turning off the plasma removes any residual current in the screen and resets all pixels.

Am I wrong?

Hello chasin,

I haven't really studied a black picture with the 32HDT55 in a completely dark room but I'll give it a try and see if there is anything strange. I think grounding problems can cause some banding issues that can be seen when displaying a black screen.

rogo,

Quote from the Hitachi owner's manual:

Screen Wipe
If pattern mark occurs, use Screen Wipe (White Field Signal) for at least 10 minutes to refresh any damage that may have occurred
from a pattern mark. Screen Wipe can resolve pattern mark to a certain degree, if caution is not used, permanent damage may occur.
Press the EXIT button to return to normal viewing.

Hitachi seems to want us to think that it is of some use. I guess time will tell.

Best regards,

Paul Bigelow

Paul: I dispute that the Hitachi recommendation has an iota of value for actual burn in. Temporary voltage / image retention, fine, but burn in fuhgdedaboudit.

Mark

I thought the banding caused by grounding problems was of the moving/scrolling variety. The bands I'm referring to are static. Check it out on your display and let me know if you see it too.

being a new JVC ED plasma owner, i read this thread with interest but i have to ask...what preventative maintenance can be done to reduce the possibility of burn in? the jvc has a function that seens similar to hitachi. it basically pump-out white noise.

thanks.

Boy, are we all anal retentive or what?

I admit it! I do look for burn in, all the time.

I admit it! Everytime I see something, anything that seems the slightest bit out of the ordinary, even though I can never see it on programming, I worry. I obsess over it.

I admit it! I try all sorts of techniques to examine the display to find any hint of bars, banding, stripes, dead pixels, lines, etc., sigh...

I admit it! I think I've become more than a little obsessed about this, and I think some others here may fall into that category.

I admit it! I'm gonna shake this addiction, I'm gonna quit this game, I'm gonna get this monkey off my back. From now on I'm just gonna try to relax and enjoy the movies. After all, that's why I bought it.

But, I think some weaning may be necessary, so...

Chasin - Are the bars horizontal or vertical and where are they located? I have noticed a similar phenomenon where the top half of my screen is a lighter black than the bottom half, but it only occurs when a source unit is on, but no programming being fed through (e.g., as the DVD player powers up or down, the black screen as a show goes to commercial, etc.). I thought it was the cables I was using picking up stray interference, or something like that. Maybe it is something more.

Sheesh, there I go again. I gotta go look at this and see if I can... NO! I'm not going to do it! Can't help it...

Is there a 12 step program for this?

That "Now Playing" screen couldn't stay up for that long. If I leave that on (with my tube tv) for about 5 minutes, the TiVo kicks out of that screen and goes to live TV. It won't stay there for long, maybe it's 10 minutes, but it's definitely not longer than that. Seems like it would be hard for that to be the cause. You'd have sit there and keep repeatedly going back to it.

As I mentioned in my first post in this thread, I'm fairly positive that what I'm observing on my panel is unrelated to burn-in, as it's been there since day one. Perhaps I shouldn't have confused the issue and brought up my observations in this thread. In any case, the "banding" on my set is horizontal and occurs at several vertical locations on the panel. I'm wih you MarketingProf, I know I'm being anal about this. I very rarely observe any effects from this, it only occurs on a black (or nearly black) background and only when I'm watching in a dark room. I was just looking for some confirmation from Paul (or other Hitachi owners) that they observe this too so I can determine if this is particular to my panel or occurs on others. Still love my Hitachi plamsa and have been getting great enjoyment out of it. I should probably just stop obsessing...

Chasin,

Mine is unrelated to burn in as well. Maybe we should start a new thread "Non-burn-in Variances in Plasma Panels" or something. Don't want to hijack this thread. But you are right, send a grey screen or go to an input with no signal -- not there.

Hello chasin,

I took a look at the 32HDT55, turned on, with a black screen (no signal) in a completely dark room. Utilized several inputs including the DVD, HD, and even unused inputs. Obviously the "picture" isn't black but the dark gray we all know and love.

Observations:

I couldn't discern anything reliably and had to use "indirect vision" to notice any differences at all. There might be some very, very slight uneveness in the dark gray but it seems to be at random with no real pattern. There even might be some very, very faint horizontal bands about a inch wide, but then again, I might be trying too hard to see them and am instead seeing patterns where none exist. (Stare at a dark gray screen long enough and you might see all sorts of things!).

In any event, I saw nothing obvious or subtle that would be of any concern to me.

If your bands are obvious I would start unplugging equipment and see if there is some external cause.

Might try the "Screen Wipe" for a minute or two and see if the bands go away.

Best regards,

Paul Bigelow

Well, sorry to jump in on my first post like this. I hope I put this in the right place.

I have been lurking here for a couple of months digesting all this material. For that, thanks.

I made my decision and took delivery of my Fuji P42HHA30WS on Friday and WOW what a picture. Everything and then some. But something disturbing has developed. My wife and daughter have a great love for tennis and enjoyed a number of hours of the Australian Open over the weekend. Like 3 hours Saturday and 3 hours Sunday. We also watched DVD’s and standard broadcasts and this morning it was still there. So the final numbers are something like 6 hours of ESPN2 out of a total viewing time of 30 hours.

Low and behold now with no signal and the PDP on I can read ESPN2 in the lower right corner of the dark screen. I must be missing something because I was told by many dealers this couldn’t happen this quickly with screen changes and advertisements and such. Even reading through threads here there are varying opinions on burn-in times.

I called Fujitsu tech service and they said this can cause “burn-in†in just a few hours. Not ghosts or image retention but true “burn-inâ€. This disturbs me tremendously. Anyway the tech told me to put the white screen on for hours, like 8, while I was at work. I am going to give this a try.

Has anyone used a white screen for this long?

If plasmas are truly this touchy, I may have made a mistake.

Gryphonz,

I too am a huge tennis fan and have been watching the Australian Open on ESPN. I depise their on-screen graphics and have also worried about having them burn-in my plasma, but so far have seen no effects of this. The 'Australian Open Live' logo that they've been running in the upper right corner is pretty transparent so it shouldn't be a big problem. The status line they continually run at the bottom of the screen is another story, but I've been using the vertical position adjustment of my Hitachi 42HDT55 to slide most of the image off the bottom of the screen (the Hitachi only allows a finite amount of vertical positioning and ESPN's graphic is too large to eliminate it completely, but I'd say it gets rid of about 95% of it). I also always use the "wobbler" so static images are moved two pixels every 20 minutes. I've also calibrated my plasma so that it's no longer in torch mode (came out of the box with contrast set to 100%). With these precautions, I seem to have avoided any sort of burn-in from the Australian Open (and believe me, I look!). Even so, I've been running the white-wash screen for 10-15 minutes after watching lots of the AO just in case. So, make sure you calibrate the contrast of your display, turn on the wobbler feature of the Fujitsu, and use any vertical image adjustment features the Fujitsu has to get rid of the evil ESPN status bar. Throw in a white-wash for good measure every now and then and you should be ok. Ain't plasma ownership grand? :)

chasin,

Thanks for the input.

I am getting more and more concerned by this the more I dig. If this turns out to be a permanent burn-in in only 6 hours, I don't care how good the PQ is, it's not worth it.

The only time you can see it is when there is no signal and the screen is dark. When I am watch something or on white screen it doesn't show up.

As far as settings go, it comes from the factory with brightness and contrast at 0. You can go (+) or (-) from there. I have adjusted both to the(-) side.

I have a tech coming over on Wednesday to look at it. I have 11 days left to evaluate on a 14 day return policy. It may not take that long to make up my mind.

I'd be surprised if the burn-in was permanent after such a short time. Try the 8-hour white screen and see if that helps. Good luck getting this resolved. Let us know how it turns out.